Finding Time to Lose with you is Water in a Dust Bowl
by Jeline
Summary: Stiles shouldn't have seen this coming but in the recess of his mind he could admit that there was the smallest inkling that they would crash into each other eventually. Like a collision; powerful, solid and breathtakingly fast. (Inspired/based on the song "Lose Some Time" by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Not a songfic.)


Finding Time to Lose with you is Water in a Dust Bowl

Stiles shouldn't have seen this coming but in the recess of his mind he could admit that there was the smallest inkling that they would crash into each other eventually. Like a collision; powerful, solid and breathtakingly fast. Derek had been in a relationship with Ms. Blake for three and a half years and the pack could admit that they had never seen him this happy. She looked like a French creole beauty queen, of fucking course Derek would be happy with her. Beautiful people like other beautiful people. Cora seemed to like her well enough and the somewhat awkward woman was welcomed into the fold. He even had to begrudgingly admit that although he harbored a crush on Derek for almost 90% of the time he had known him, he was happy for him although he sometimes had fleeting moments where he wondered if he could have been the one to make the Sourwolf smile. Gone were the days of Stiles being slammed against walls and threatened bodily harm by the Alpha. Well, generally speaking, he knew he could be a little shit sometimes.

Stiles had moved on, for the most part. He was in a year and four month relationship with Jason, a guy he met at school. Scott even really liked Jason, surprisingly. He said Jason brought some normalcy into Stiles' life after herding around a pack of pups for years. When Derek met Jason, Stiles' tried to tell himself that he had imagined the brief pang of some fleetingly painful emotion he saw in the other man's eyes. He ignored the quiet barbed comments that came out of Derek's mouth to Jennifer that he felt Jason was just so _perfect_ for Stiles, the _perfect_ partner. Perfectly normal, perfectly safe.

If Stiles had to be honest with himself, what made Jason stick out at that dorm party he met him at were his eyes. They crinkled in the corners when he laughed, like Derek's. In fact they were a deep shade of green mixed with flecks of blue. Green like Derek's but missing the bits of hazel that added warmth. Where Derek's skin was warm and tan, Jason's skin was olive. Jason's bulk would never match Derek's but he was soft in his own way. Similar but different all the same.

So when Derek, Lydia, Boyd and Stiles had found themselves in Austin to form an alliance with a local pack, the tension was palpable. They were up against a new wave of Hunter families that had been trying to gain more power after the fall of the Argents. When a peaceful treaty was enacted and a plan was hatched to take them down, it was time to celebrate. After a night of lots of alcohol and wolfsbane laced tequila for the wolves, Derek and Stiles somehow found themselves on the dance floor. Stiles had started out dancing with Lydia and Derek was dancing with Amber, the local pack's Alpha for show. He knew Derek wasn't drunk enough to dance for pleasure, he always said he hated it. When Lydia scampered off to hook up with one of Amber's betas and Amber found herself arguing with her younger sister, it left the two of them staring awkwardly at each other.

Stiles scratched the back of his head, his hair was longer now and he knew he probably had messed up his hair while dancing with Lydia. Derek looked sheepish but tugged on the younger man's wrist until they were dancing closely to some ridiculous love song.

"I thought you hated dancing," Stiles murmured from Derek's left shoulder. He caught a whiff of his cologne, musky laced with sandalwood.

"I do. Can't leave you out on the dance floor. You could flail and hit someone, then where would the treaty go?"

"Hey man, I have gotten spectacularly better at this coordination thing. Gravity hates me a lot less now." Stiles snapped good-naturedly.

"Not when you're drunk."

"Says the drunken werewolf."

"Shut up and just lose yourself to the song or something. Just…lose some time in between all this chaos."

"How poetic of you."

"Shut up, Stiles."

Somehow that night they ended up in a tumble of limbs at the hotel they were staying at. Boyd and Lydia ended up staying at the party, both finding respective partners for the night. They started kissing in the elevator (how cliché) after Derek brought up the last time Stiles had put himself in the line of fire for Scott, getting a wolfsbane laced stab in his thigh. Somehow the conversation went south and they were yelling at each other between floors 2 and 14. Derek yelled at Stiles telling him he could have a normal life with Jason if he just walked away from pack business completely, or at least minimize his involvement. Stiles took offense.

"Do you have a death wish or something?" Derek growled.

"My involvement is my choice Derek, I've been doing this since I was 16."

"That's my point exactly, do you want to end up prematurely dead. You're in college, you've got shit going for you…ugh. I don't want to see you get hurt. This isn't a way to live your life, Stiles."

"Again, dude…my choice! I could say the same for you. Are you looking for a time card to clock you out of this life because you've got this great life with Jennifer. Cora told me you guys are thinking about moving in together and even though you've got this happiness, man. I feel like you're still acting like it's your cross to bear and we can't be around to help with the burden." He snapped.

"You can have a normal life with Jason that Jenn and I will never really get to have."

"Maybe I don't want normal, you fucking idio—" And with that he was silenced by Derek kissing him. It was slow and languid, unlike everything else they seemed to do when they were around each other.

They ended up back in Derek's room and he slowly worshiped Stiles, kissing and licking him slowly as if he thought he'd never get the chance to do this again. Stiles would moan, his breath would hitch and arch into his touch and it only drove Derek further to give him everything he wanted. He filled him up in the best of ways and when it was over, the moonlight slipped in through the window and onto his angular face with scratchy stubble and Stiles couldn't help but feel a sense of calm wash through him. It settled something into his soul. Of course he cared about Jason and he and Derek may pretend this never happened the next morning but he could pretend that for one night, it was Stiles he really wanted. He was great at playing make believe as a kid, it sure as hell seemed to transcend into adulthood. Their small moment is like finding time in the most remote of places. Like finding water in a dust bowl. Almost impossible but if you look hard enough, for long enough, you might just find it.

The next time they find themselves together is a motel in Georgia a year later. Stiles finds himself spending his spring break in Atlanta, Georgia without Jason because Jason went to Vancouver to visit his dad. Derek just so happened to have family outside of Atlanta and the two took the same flight and Derek even rented a car during their stay. Stiles had found out that his mother's great-aunt lived in Atlanta and left him with a serious amount of cash flow in her will. Needless to say, he didn't have to think about paying off the rest of school with student loans. He made sure he and Derek stayed at separate hotels to not tempt fate. Little did they know that during the drive to Derek's family, the rental broke down and they had to sleep in a motel over night.

"We shouldn't," Stiles said looking at his overnight bag.

"We can't." Derek agreed nodding quietly.

Somehow their mouths still found each other, slowly and sweetly kissing each other as if they had all the time in the world.

This time they couldn't blame it on the booze, both were fully aware when they looked longingly at the other. This time it was Stiles turn to worship Derek, memorize every muscle, every inch of skin that he could find. And after their first round, that quickly turned into two, he realized something. It was one thing to lazily have sex with someone but this was entirely different. He pieced together their times together and with a punch to the gut realized that they weren't having sex, they were making love. It was this thought alone that made him come. The weight of that knowledge sent him sinking back into the bed while Derek tucked him into his furnace of a body. He tried to still his erratic heart that was jumping from exerted energy but also from what he now knew.

Maybe Derek could smell his fear, his awe and the way his heart shattered with the realization.

He knew as he drifted off to sleep that he could never love Jason. That he would go home and sleep in Jason's arms whenever the other would sleep over and his mind would always be fixed on Derek. He knew now what he didn't allow himself to accept at even 16. He was in love with Derek fucking Hale. He may tragically be always in love with him, even just a little bit. And he couldn't bring himself to feel guilty about it, unless someone found out about them. It could be their secret. Hadn't they deserved some kind of selfishness after the universe was constantly throwing Beacon Hills for a loop as if it was an extended episode of Supernatural?

The next morning, Stiles believed he knew better. Derek decided that he didn't need to see his family after all. He drove Stiles back to his hotel. He looked dejected, guilty and anxious. He pulled Stiles into one last languid kiss and walked away. He didn't even look back. Stiles imagined he was thinking about Jennifer, about how to face her. How the night before had been one giant mistake.

He hadn't heard from Derek in months. He had decided to not go back to Beacon Hills for the summer, instead started an internship in Los Angeles and took summer courses. It would fill up time, hold back his mind from thinking about Derek. Truthfully that didn't work, he always thought about Derek. He and Jason had broken up, right after he returned from Spring Break. Jason broke down and told him he had cheated on him with some guy at a night club and Stiles couldn't really bring himself to care. Jason said they were too young to be serious and that Stiles was more grown up than he could ever be. If only he knew. He called Scott and told him. He asked him not to tell the others about him and Jason. He started casually hooking up with people in LA. There was Emmy, Logan, Tess and Rob but none of them turned out to be anything like Derek. None of them could make them feel remotely close to what sex was like with him. He really did know otherwise but he sought out sex all the same.

He returned to Beacon Hills in December, his father was about to throw a conniption fit over the fact that he hadn't seen his only son in almost a year. He avoided Pack Meetings and blamed his coursework, asking Scott to delegate his part for him. He got a phone call from Derek on Christmas Eve.

"Stiles,"

"Hey, man…" Stiles tried to sound calm but knew inside he was anything but.

"I haven't heard from you almost eight months."

"I know, I've been busy. You know how it is, I've got one more year left and my courses are harder. Oh did Scott tell you I got an internship in the summer? Yeah, I did—with um, with the District Attorney's office. My boss' name is Manny, he's cool… really quiet though. Um, I'm double minoring in psychology and history. Isn't that a snore—but it's cool though, I think—"

"Stiles!" Derek growled through the phone.

"What?"

"Open your window, it's freezing outside."

He gaped at his window and sure enough, a leather clad Derek was crouched outside his bedroom window like old times. His expression was guarded, it reminded him of the Derek he had met when he was just a teenager. He slowly made his way to the window to open it.

"You've been avoiding me." Derek huffed as he climbed inside.

"Listen, I know you're allergic to doors but I thought we got past this years ago."

"I never know how to do things around you, your reactions tend to surprise me."

Stiles just gaped at him like a fish. Why was he here? It was clear how he felt about everything that happened between them while they were in Georgia. Derek closed the space between them and dragged the rest of him by his shirt collar and kissed him roughly. Clothes were falling and there was erratic fumbling but they managed to press their bodies together. This time everything was heated, as if Derek didn't want to let him go. Quicker than usual but his movements were precise and calculated. As if he spent time thinking about how he'd sex him up and leave Stiles in a puddle of goo.

They lay there in the dark with Derek pressing him even closer to him, melding his body next to his. The moonlight dragged through the window much like it did their first night in Austin and he was reminded of how his soul felt settled but now it felt anything but.

He tried to get up out of his bed but Derek just dragged him closer and nuzzled his neck, sniffing him and drawing circles with his thumb on Stiles' abdomen. And Stiles knew, knew he couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't be a secret anymore. It wasn't alright anymore.

"Derek," he murmured.

"Hmm…"

"What is this? I—I can't be another option for you. I know how you left in Georgia thinking that what happened was a mistake. That's why I didn't come back. I wanted you to have the life you want to have with Jennifer. And then…tonight. It's not fair. To me or her. We can't do this anymore, not like this."

"I could say the same thing about you and Jason."

"Jason and I broke up as soon as I got back from Georgia." He muttered.

"Jenn and I broke up a month after I got back from Georgia."

"What?!"

"Scott didn't tell you?"

"No."

"Good, I told him not to."

"I told him not to tell you about Jason."

"I know… he told me last night. He yelled at me. Told me we have to get our shit together. He smelled you on me when I came home in April. He said he could smell me on one your shirts when he visited you in LA."

"I knew I should have washed that shirt." A beat. "So this…"

"I want you. It's that simple. All of you, I've wanted you for years but I didn't realize it until Jason came along. And really see it until we were in Austin. Do you—do you want to be with me?"

"Yeah. I don't want to lose time between all the chaos anymore. I want you before, during and after chaos."

"I think I can manage that." And Stiles could feel him grinning behind him. Maybe he could really believe he was the kind of person that could make Derek Hale smile after all.


End file.
